The text describes the monastery in Podkamień, near Brody. This place is known, among other things, for its image of the Mother of God, while its history dates back to the 13th century. The article describes the entire history of the monastery in detail, including mention of its complete demolition during the wars, or - when it was rebuilt again - by a faulty vault. The foundation of John III Sobieski for the rebuilding of the monastery is mentioned, as well as - in later times - the collection of paintings, mainly of members of the Cebrowski, Potocki, Wiśniowiecki and other families. The text is also accompanied by photographs (Source: "Ziemia. Tygodnik Krajoznawczy Ilustrowany', Warsaw 1913, no. 50, pp. 3-6, after: Wielkopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa).

A modernised reading of the text.

The monastery in Podkamień.

Driving south-east from Brody, soon after leaving the town we see on the horizon the silhouette of a kind of castle with a tower. This is the Podkamień Monastery, one of the oldest in the country, famous for its miraculous image of the Mother of God, and interesting because of its defensive character, which has remained largely intact until now. The origins of the Podkamieński Monastery date back to the distant past, to the early years of the 13th century. In ancient times, this area was said to have been the seat of the brave tribe of the Polovtsians, who for many years raided the neighbouring lands, often inflicting heavy defeats on the Russian princes. Thus, one of the oldest monuments of Ruthenian literature, the valuable epic poem "Word about Igor's regiment", describes the unfortunate expedition of Igor Svyatoslavich, Duke of Putywel, against the Polovtsians, who only succumbed to the Russian arms at the end of the 12th century. The area was wild and gloomy at that time. This mountain," says an old historian of the hill on which the monastery stands today, "was for many centuries one and the same desert, a delightful wilderness for wild animals and a nurturing place for dense forests". The Dominicans, famous for their missionary work in Ruthenia, were the first to arrive in this area at the beginning of the 13th century, during the reign of St. Jacek Odrowaz. Having taken a liking to a high, rocky hill in the middle of a thick forest, they built a temple to the Virgin Mary and a monastery on the site of what is said to have been a former hunting ground of the Polovtsians, and called the hill the "Holy Rosary Hill". This is the first name of this place that we encounter. In later papal decrees and chronicles, the Podkamień monastery is referred to as "Conventus subcaminiensis" or "sublapidiensis", and the town of Podkamień, formerly Podkamień, as "Saxipolis". However, it was not long before the pious fathers could stay here and devote themselves to their missionary work, for which a wide field opened up, as pagan rites had not yet been completely extinguished among the local population - the terrible invasion of Poland by the Mongol hordes during the reign of Bolesław the Chaste in 1241 put an end to the existence of the church and monastery, reducing them to rubble. The then Prior Urban and twelve monks were murdered by the Tatars. As the monastery's historian writes: "a Tataris occisi trunculentissime". This event is passed on to posterity by a large painting in the corridor of the monastery, and the convent commemorates the martyrdom of its first brothers every year on 2 May. From then on, there was no church or monastery for more than two centuries. It was only in the second half of the 15th century that Peter of Žabokruk Cebrovsky, having built a castle on the mountain, called "Horodyszcze", and having founded a town at its foot, decided to build a temple there, too, and establish a preaching order. In 1464 the Dominicans were ceremoniously moved into their new building by the Archbishop of Lviv, Gregory of Sanok. With a generous foundation, the fathers began working to establish the Roman rite here, and they had plenty of room to do so as there was no church for miles around. At that time, the temples in Olesko, Brody and Wiśniowiec did not yet exist. The peaceful work of the Order was soon threatened again by the Tartars, who started to invade the Ruthenian lands more and more frequently at the end of the 15th century, until they destroyed the Podkamień monastery and temple for the second time in 1519. The already mentioned Fr. Augustyn Filipowicz writes about this attack: "In the year 1510, during the reign of the Most Serene Monarch Sigismund I of Poland, the Perekopsian Tatars, royal hotdogs, of whom there were 24,000, invaded Rus and located themselves on the border between Volhynia and Podolia by the river Horyn at Wiśniowiec; At that time the unholy hand of the enemy destroyed and burnt down so many towns, castles and churches, and it attacked this holy place, which it almost razed to the ground because it burnt everything down". Some of the monks were taken captive, and the abandoned monastery property was given to Marcin Kamieniecki, Voivode of Podolia. From the Kamienieckis it passed to the Daniłłowiczs, and from the latter - by way of sale - to the Cetners. The Dominicans, who had settled there and built a small wooden church, tried in vain to get the Kamienieccy and then the Daniłłowicz families to return the property to the monastery foundation, and only the Cetners returned the foundation, granted by the foundation act of Piotr Cebrowski, to the monastery. Soon, around the year 1640, the convent began, with the help of Aleksander Cetner, bannerman of Podolia, and his wife, Anna Zamojska, castellan of Lviv, the construction of the temple and the monastery buildings which exist today. At the same time, the hill was surrounded by a mighty wall, fortified with towers and equipped with cannons. The monastery, fortified in this way, often repelled Tartar attacks and gave shelter to the surrounding population. The town itself, however, was always at the mercy of the invaders, and was constantly burnt and destroyed, declining more and more. Times were hard for these borderlands of Poland in the second half of the 17th century, especially after Kamieniec Podolski was captured by the Turks in 1672. In the monastery chronicle "Liber memorabilium, ab anno 1745", we read: "Great in the local country was the desolation during the past long Turkish war against Poland, especially when the Turks, having taken 27 Augusti 1672 and holding Kamieniec Podolski until 22 Septembris 1699, sent great and frequent chamboons of Tartars into the local country. During such unfortunate circumstances, many provinces were deprived of their people, and black forests grew everywhere, so much so that on the place where the town of Podkamień is now, there was a black forest of big and old oaks and beeches, until only in 1699, when the Turks gave Kamieniec back, two houses started to be built in the forest, not far from the place where the town church now stands; The local convent also stood in the black forest, with various large and old trees around its walls, and could only be seen from the Brody road, behind the present town of Kamenets; and approaching the mountain, no one could see half of the convent and the church until they stood beneath the convent walls themselves. However, even during those bad years, the Christians lived in Podkamenie, around the chapel and around the Spasskaya church, but so cautiously that at every sign of terror they fled to the convent, which was not only walled, but also had at that time behind the wall saucepans with baskets and harmattas. The Tatars most often attacked here from Ternopil and Oleksinice, on whose arrival, as soon as the harmattas started to be heard in Ternopil or in Wiśniowiec, or in Oleksiniec and Poczajów, a similar uproar was heard not only in Załońce, but also in Horodyszcz, where, by the brick tower, the people, having one harmatka and several baskets with a small handgun, never gave in to the Tatars. The local convent had to keep watchmen for this purpose, especially on the tower, listening, that is, where the terror shots were fired, and to sound its own harmatics, thus letting Brody know about the terror and the closer places where people defended themselves against the Tatars. During such a long war, although the Tatars were in Podkamień several times each year, they never harmed the convent; part of it was that they were sometimes miraculously frightened, part that the convent repulsed them not only with their weapons, but also by not accepting anyone entering the convent, only ready to defend themselves with either a "bakown" or a "smaller rifle". The newly built temple did not last long. The faulty vaulting soon began to crack, until it finally collapsed in 1680. However, it was soon rebuilt by King Jan III Sobieski, at a cost of around 500,000 zloty, and the renewed temple was consecrated in 1695, as evidenced by a marble plaque next to the sacristy door. The Podkamień Monastery reached its heyday in the middle of the 18th century. At that time, there were about 150 monks residing there, dedicated to the education of young people and scholarly work, for which the monastery, with its rich library, was particularly suited. With the collapse of Poland, however, this great period in the history of the Podkamień monastery came to an end. On 5 August 1772, the Austrian army marched in. The fortress was abolished and the monastery's weapons were ordered to be deposited in the regional office in Zloczow. Most of the fathers left the monastery, moving to Finland. But soon an even more severe blow was to befall the monastery. In 1788, Emperor Joseph II issued a decree reducing the number of monasteries in Galicia. Among many others, the Podkamień monastery was to be abolished. The decree was expected to be carried out overnight, when Joseph II died in 1790 and his successor Leopold II abolished the monastery. Today, the local convent numbers 7 priests and 8 monks, and by fulfilling its parish duties at this borderland outpost, it also stands guard over endangered Polishness. The Podkamienna Monastery, one of the largest in Poland, is built in a quadrangle, as is customary in Dominican monasteries, and is situated picturesquely on a rocky hill. Its construction began, as already mentioned, in the middle of the 17th century. The monastery buildings were extended and fortified with a star-shaped fortress wall, reinforced with round bastions according to the plans of artillery colonel Christopher Dahlke, around 1746. The spacious monastery buildings comprise several hundred rooms. The cells, corridors and cloisters contain many paintings, mostly portraits of members of the Cebrowski, Potocki, Wiśniowiecki, Cetner, Ledóchowski and other families. Two larger canvases depict the coronation of the miraculous image of the Mother of God. The church itself, built in the shape of a cross, is in the late Renaissance style. The construction of its beautiful Baroque tower began much later, in 1708, and the view from it is extensive and picturesque. To the northeast is the dark mantle of the Volhynian forests, among which the white walls and golden domes of the famous Pochaiv Monastery stand. To the west, the undulating, wooded Voronlaki range stretches, with a neat little town at the foot of the hill, and behind it, amidst the park, is the palace of the Cetner family, the heirs of Kamień. In the al fresco painted church there are several beautiful tombstones and portraits, mostly of the Łojków family, as well as a number of paintings depicting the mysteries of the Rosary by Jablonski. The miraculous painting of the Mother of God, located in the main altar, is unknown where, when and by whom it was painted. The precious book containing the history of the painting, like many other documents and monastery records, was lost during the Tartar invasions. The miraculous painting itself was preserved because the monks, although they usually stayed in the fortified monastery at the time of the threatened Tartar invasions, which more than once successfully defended itself against the invaders, always, as the monastery chronicle says, "sent the miraculous painting et praetiosiorum supellectilem ecclesiasticam" to the Brody castle for safety. The painting is painted on canvas and has not lost its freshness despite the influence of centuries. Near the monastery, there is a huge stone, visible from afar, which was also the reason why the town at the foot of the mountain was named Podkamień. There is a legend attached to this stone that it was brought by Satanists who wanted to collapse the temple with it. Providence thwarted their plans, however, and as they approached the monastery and the hen cawed, they regretfully abandoned the stone on the spot where it stands today. The hollows visible on the stone are attributed by legend to the claws of the devil. Admittedly, there are more such solitary boulders in Galicia, and almost every one has a similar legend attached to it. There used to be a Spas Cathedral by the boulder near Kamień, which was much taller than it was. Today's brick church is the former Latin chapel of the "Stopek Maryi", which the government turned into a Ruthenian church in 1786. Podkamień itself is an impoverished and unremarkable little town, far away from the railway, the main highway and all the traffic. The only reminder is the monastery with its miraculous painting of the Mother of God, to which thousands of pilgrims are drawn every year, especially during the indulgenced feast.